Method and apparatus for obtaining weather information from road-going vehicles

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment taught herein, a plurality of road-going vehicles report weather-related data to a weather-determining system. For example, trucks and/or cars having in-vehicle information systems wirelessly transmit one or more items of weather-related data, such that the weather-determining system directly or indirectly receives the transmitted data. In turn, the weather-determining system jointly processes the weather-related data to determine weather information for one or more geographic areas corresponding to reported positions of the road-going vehicles. In one embodiment, the in-vehicle information systems comprise GPS-based position reporting systems installed in on-highway trucks and other fleet vehicles, and the weather-determining system comprises a modified position-tracking system, e.g., a modified network fleet management system. Weather-related data may be collected and processed for large numbers of vehicles across many geographic areas of interest, and the resulting weather information can be fed back to the road-going vehicles and/or provided to other consumers of weather information.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present invention relates generally to weather information, and morespecifically to obtaining weather information from road-going vehicles.

2. Background

Countless numbers of trucks ply the highways every day, both in NorthAmerica and elsewhere around the world. At any given moment, there maybe tens, hundreds, or even thousands of trucks on the road in any givengeographic area.

Increasingly, trucks and other road-going vehicles include vehicleinformation systems that track and report vehicle position information.Such systems generally have wireless communication links with one ormore monitoring facilities, such as a centralized Network ManagementCenter (NMC). Satellite and/or terrestrial communication networkstypically provide the communication links between the in-vehicle systemsand the NMCs.

Position data provides fleet operators with real-time or near real-timemonitoring of route progress, and greatly aids vehicle dispatching andmanagement operations. Concomitant benefits include increased driversafety and vehicle/load security. As one example, QUALCOMM offerscomprehensive fleet management services to fleet operators, and providesa relatively rich array of in-vehicle systems and related equipment,along with the software applications and NMC services needed to exploitthe collection of positional data from potentially large fleets ofroad-going vehicles.

However, in-vehicle data collection and corresponding aggregate dataprocessing has not heretofore exploited richer data collectionopportunities, such as weather-related data collection and processing.There is therefore a need in the art for more fully exploiting theability to collect and process information from road-going vehicles.

SUMMARY

Embodiments disclosed herein address the above stated and other needs byreporting weather-related data from road-going vehicles to aweather-determining system that processes the data to obtain weatherinformation. In one aspect, a method of reporting weather data from aroad-going vehicle comprises determining weather-related data inconjunction with determining geographic positions of the road-goingvehicle, and reporting the weather-related data for the determinedgeographic positions to a remote weather-determining system. By way ofnon-limiting example, an in-vehicle information system obtainsweather-related measurements and reports such measurements directly orindirectly to the weather-determining system, such as by satellite orcellular communication links.

Correspondingly, in another aspect disclosed herein, a method ofdetermining weather information comprises receiving weather-related datafrom a plurality of road-going vehicles, and processing theweather-related data to determine weather information for one or moregeographic areas corresponding to reported positions of the road goingvehicles. Such processing comprises, for example, joint processingwherein weather-related data reported by multiple road-going vehiclesfor the same or similar times and geographic areas are processedtogether. By way of non-limiting example, weather-related data collectedfor the same times and areas are processed together by theweather-determining system to obtain statistically reliable weatherinformation. However determined, the resulting weather information canbe fed back to the road-going vehicles and/or provided to otherconsumers of weather information on subscription or on-demand basis.

As another non-limiting example, the weather-determining system maycomprise a suitably modified position-tracking system, such as may bepre-existing at a network-based fleet management center. Complementingsuch aspects, the in-vehicle information systems providingweather-related data reports may comprise suitably modified, in-vehicleposition-tracking systems, such as would be installed in long-haultrucks and other highway vehicles. Indeed, in one or more aspects taughtherein, existing vehicle sensor data and other information is exploitedto measure or infer weather data in a road-going vehicle, such thatexisting position-tracking and other types of in-vehicle informationsystems may be configured to report weather-related data without needfor adding additional sensors, etc. However, sensors may be added asneeded or desired.

Of course, the present invention is not limited to the above featuresand advantages. Those skilled in the art will recognize additionalfeatures and advantages upon reading the following detailed description,and viewing the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a weather-determiningsystem having direct or indirect communication links with a number ofroad-going vehicles in one or more geographic areas;

FIG. 2 is a logic flow diagram of one embodiment of processing logic foran in-vehicle information system configured to provide weather data froma road-going vehicle to a remote weather-determining system;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of one embodiment of a weather data message reportedby an in-vehicle information system to a remote weather-determiningsystem;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of one embodiment of an in-vehicle informationsystem configured to provide weather data from a road-going vehicle to aremote weather-determining system;

FIG. 5 is a logic flow diagram of one embodiment of processing logic fora weather-determining system configured to determine weather informationbased on receiving weather data from a plurality of road-going vehicles;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a weather-determiningsystem configured to determine weather information based on receivingweather data from a plurality of road-going vehicles;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of one embodiment of functional processinglogic for determining precipitation-related weather information based onprocessing wiper speed information from a plurality of road-goingvehicles; and

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of one embodiment of functional processinglogic for determining weather information from weather data reported bya plurality of road-going vehicles.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a weather-determining system 10 having direct orindirect communication links to a plurality of road-going vehicles 12that are configured to report weather data to the weather-determiningsystem 10. In turn, the weather-determining system 10 processes thereported weather data to determine weather information for one or moregeographic regions. For example, by exploiting reported weather datafrom the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of road-going vehicles 12 inany given geographic area of the world—city, county, etc.—theweather-determining system 10 can determine statistically reliable andrichly detailed weather information for that given area. Effectively,the plurality of road-going vehicles 12 operate as a distributed systemof thousands or hundreds of thousands of rolling weather stationsproviding real-time or near real-time weather data.

The road-going vehicles 12 may be individually owned vehicles and/orcommercial or private fleet vehicles. In general, each of the road-goingvehicles includes a vehicle information system, such as a GPS trackingsystem, vehicle telematics system, etc. For example, in one or moreembodiments, at least some of the road-going vehicles 12 are commercialor private fleet trucks equipped with communicatively linkedposition-tracking systems, e.g., a GPS-based tracking and reportingsystem, such as a version of QUALCOMM's OMNITRACS mobile tracking andcommunication system for fleet management. In the same or otherembodiments, at least some of the vehicles may be privately owned carsor other light duty vehicles equipped with a vehicle telematics system,such as ONSTAR.

Each road-going vehicle 12 has persistent or non-persistentcommunication links to the weather-determining system 10. For example,some types of in-vehicle information systems include satellite-basedcommunication modules—satellite data modems—that provide persistentconnections between a road-going vehicle 12 and the remoteweather-determining system 10 via one or more satellites 14. Other typesof in-vehicle information systems additionally or alternatively useterrestrial communication links, such as cellular communication linksvia one or more private or commercial cellular networks 16. In any case,this discussion assumes that individual ones of the road-going vehicles12 have some means of reporting weather-related data directly orindirectly to the weather-determining system 10.

In that context, FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of processing logicfor an in-vehicle information system configured to provide weather datafrom a road-going vehicle 12. Those skilled in the art will appreciatethat the illustrated processing logic may be embodied in hardware,software, or any mix thereof, and may represent just one of potentiallymany processing tasks being carried out sequentially or concurrently. Inone example, the illustrated processing logic executes on a timedinterval, such as every minute, every five minutes, etc. Also, those ofskill will appreciate that the processing logic illustrated in FIG. 2,and in other logic or processing flow diagrams discussed herein, doesnot necessarily imply a fixed order. Thus, in at least some cases, theillustrated method steps or actions can be interchanged withoutdeparting from the present invention.

With the above points in mind, the illustrated processing “begins” withdetermining weather-related data in conjunction with determiningpositions of the road-going vehicle (Step 100). This processing stepreflects the general need to correlate collected weather data with thecorresponding geographic location. Given that the in-vehicle informationsystem collecting such weather data may be a suitably modified GPS-basedvehicle tracking system, such geographic location is readily availableand, likely, is already being reported to a remote tracking system on aregular or as-needed basis.

Thus, processing continues with reporting the weather-related data forthe determined geographic positions to a remote weather-determiningsystem (Step 102), e.g., the weather-determining system 10. In oneembodiment, weather-related data is collected at a first time interval,locally stored, and then batch-reported at second, longer time interval.In another embodiment, weather-related data is reported at thecollection rate, e.g., every minute, every five minutes, etc. Thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that such details can be varieddepending on, for example, the economics of frequent but short reportsversus less frequent but longer reports, local data storagecapabilities, and the desirability of having real-time or near real-timeweather-related data at the weather-determining system 10. Further, atleast some of the road-going vehicles 12 may use different reportingintervals and even different report types/formats.

FIG. 3 illustrates one embodiment of a weather data report message 17sent by a road-going vehicle 12, wherein corresponding time andposition-related data accompany weather-related data from one or morecollection intervals. In this way, the weather-determining system 10receives one or more items of weather-related data, along withcorresponding time-stamp and geographic position data. In at least oneembodiment, one or more of the road-going vehicles 12 send MobileInitiated Position Reports (MIPRs) according to a desired reportinginterval, e.g., every five minutes. According to one or more embodimentstaught herein, MIPRs are used to convey weather-related data to theweather-determining system 10.

Note that weather-related data may be added to every MIPR reported by agiven road-going vehicle 12, or to selected MIPRs. In such contexts, andin general, reducing or minimizing the amount of data needed to conveythe weather-related data yields communication advantages. Limiting thenumber of different parameters collected and reported as weather-relateddata represents one solution for controlling communication bandwidthand/or on-air time. Of course, various data compression techniques maybe used, depending upon the overall economics of the communicationlinks, and on the capabilities of the in-vehicle information systems,which could differ among vehicles.

FIG. 4 illustrates one embodiment of a in-vehicle information system 18that is configured for installation in a road-going vehicle 12, andconfigured to report weather-related data to a remoteweather-determining system 10. The illustrated in-vehicle informationsystem 18 comprises a processing system 20, also referred to as a MobileApplication Server or “MAS.” In one embodiment, the processing system 20comprises a computer system having one or more microprocessors andassociated memory, and is configured to run WINDOWS CE or some othersuitable operating system, such as LINUX, QNX, etc. Further, theprocessing system 20 generally is provisioned with one or moreapplication programs, providing position-tracking functions, navigationassistance, driver information and communication functions, along withweather-data collection and reporting functions.

In support of these and other functions, the in-vehicle informationsystem 18 further includes or is associated with a number of othersub-systems and interfaces. In the illustrated embodiment, thein-vehicle information system 18 includes or is associated with one ormore wireless communication interfaces 22, which may include a SatelliteData Modem (SDM) and/or a cellular communications transceiver, aGPS/Navigation sub-system 24, a discrete signal interface 26, a vehicledata bus interface 28, and an operator interface 30, also referred to asa Mobile Display Unit or “MDU.”

The one or more wireless communication interfaces 22 provide direct orindirect communication links to the remote weather-determining system10, and such links may be persistent or non-persistent. Thesecommunications links also may provide for incoming data feeds, such asvarious driver information feeds.

Of course, to report weather-related data, the in-vehicle informationsystem 18 first must collect such data via one or more correspondingmeasurements. In one embodiment, in-vehicle information system 18includes or is associated with a number of relevant sensors, e.g., oneor more of a temperature sensor, a precipitation sensor, a humiditysensor, and a barometric pressure sensor. Such sensors may be analog,digital, or any mix thereof, and the discrete signal interface 26 isconfigured accordingly, i.e., to receive the corresponding analog ordigital signals. In one embodiment, the discrete signal interface 26provides digital data to the processing system 20 corresponding todiscrete weather-data input signals.

Of course, there are monetary and practical disadvantages associatedwith requiring the road-going vehicles 12 to carry dedicatedweather-sensing equipment. Indeed, one or more embodiments taught hereinexploit indirect (inferential) sensing of weather-related data and/ormake advantageous use of sensor information already available on thetypical road-going vehicle 12. In one example of inferential sensing ofweather-related data, the discrete signal interface 26, or the vehicledata bus interface 28, is configured to receive windshield wiper speeddata, e.g., on/off, fast/slow/intermittent, etc. In turn, the processingsystem 20 infers precipitation-related data from the wiper speedinformation.

Inferential sensing also may include the sensing of Antilock BrakingSystem (ABS) related data, which is relevant to sensing icing and otherslick/hazardous road conditions. In one embodiment, the discrete signalinterface 26 receives ABS-related data. For example, the same discretesignal used to activate a dashboard or other driving-warning indicatorregarding ABS activity can be sensed via the discrete interface 26 as anindication of ABS activity. In another embodiment, the in-vehicleinformation system 18 receives ABS-related data via the vehicle data businterface 28. Notably, in at least one embodiment, the in-vehicleinformation system 18 receives temperature-related data,precipitation-related data (e.g., wiper speed data), andABS/braking-related data, and thereby supports relatively richinferential-based weather information determination by theweather-determining system 10.

In other words, at least one embodiment of the in-vehicle informationsystem 18 as taught herein adds weather-related data reportingcapabilities to a given road-going vehicle 12, while requiring little orno new wiring and no added sensors. For example, most late-modelvehicles include sophisticated engine and vehicle management systems,which provide accurate ambient temperature sensing. Thesealready-available temperature measurements can be provided to thein-vehicle information system 18 via the vehicle bus data interface 28,for use in weather-related data reporting. Likewise, many enginemanagement and/or driver information systems monitor humidity, and otherparameters relevant to weather conditions, and any or all such data maybe routed to the in-vehicle information system 18, which may pass alongsuch data via its reporting capabilities, or pre-process such data asneeded or desired for weather-related data reporting.

In at least one particular embodiment taught herein, the vehicle databus interface 28 comprises a “J-BUS” interface, wherein “J-BUS” denotesthe heavy vehicle data bus standards promulgated by the Society ofAutomotive Engineers, more commonly known as the “SAE.” For example, thevehicle data bus interface 28 can be configured to monitor fortemperature and other weather-related data messages in accordance withthe J1587 standard, which defines J-BUS message types and formats. (Notethat very accurate ambient temperature readings may be obtained byreceiving inlet engine air temperature readings via the J-BUS or othertruck data bus, as most trucks “snorkel” fresh air from outside theirengine compartments.)

Of course, differently configured vehicle data bus interfaces 28 can beprovided and used, as needed for different types of road-going vehicles12. That is, the configuration of the in-vehicle information system 18may be different for a passenger car or light-duty truck installation,than it would be for a long-haul trailer tractor installation. However,those skilled in the art will appreciate that all or most of theconfiguration variations of the in-vehicle information systems 18 may betransparent to the weather-determining system 10.

In at least one embodiment, the weather-determining system 10 comprisesa network management center processing system. Thus, theweather-determining system 10 may comprise a modified version of apre-existing fleet management processing system already having vehicleposition tracking, route monitoring, and overall fleet managementcapabilities.

Whether implemented as a standalone system, or integrated with apre-existing fleet management system, FIG. 5 illustrates one embodimentof processing logic for the weather-determining system 10. Suchprocessing may represent a small part of a larger, overall processingroutine, and may be implemented in hardware, software, or anycombination thereof.

With those points in mind, weather information processing “begins” withreceiving weather-related data from a plurality of road-going vehicles12 (Step 110). Operations continue with the weather-determining system10 processing the received weather-related data to determine weatherinformation for one or more geographic areas corresponding to thereported positions of the road-going vehicles 12 (Step 112).

Complementing the processing of FIG. 5, FIG. 6 illustrates oneembodiment of the weather-determining system 10, which, again, maycomprise all or part of a network management center processing systemthat is also configured for vehicle position tracking, route monitoring,and other fleet management operations. In any case, the illustratedweather-determining system 10 comprises one or more processing systems40, one or more communication interfaces 42, local control andmonitoring interfaces 44, and one or more additional communicationinterfaces 46.

In at least one embodiment, the communication interfaces 42 providedirect or indirect communication links to the satellite and/or cellularbased communications of the road-going vehicles 12. Such links mayinclude one or more satellite ground station connections, one or morecellular network connections, and/or Internet or other data networkconnections. Further, the additional communication interfaces 46, whichmay be integrated with or share resources with the communicationinterfaces 42, can be configured to provide communications with, forexample, third-party providers of weather information, and with otherwould-be consumers of the weather information determined by theweather-determining system 10.

Indeed, in one embodiment, the weather-determining system 10 isconfigured to provide one or more weather information output feeds. Suchfeeds can be sent back to all of the road-going vehicles, or at least totargeted road-going vehicles. For example, the weather-determiningsystem 10 can be configured to determine the relevancy of weatherinformation for a given geographic region, with respect to given ones ofthe road-going vehicles. Such relevancy may be determined for any givenroad-going vehicle 12 based on its current location, its known orreported route information, its current or last-reported speed,direction, etc. In at least one embodiment, the weather-determiningsystem 10 is provisioned with subscriber information, identifyingindividual vehicle owners and/or vehicle fleet owners that aresubscribed to weather information services, and the weather-determiningsystem 10 provides relevant weather information feeds directly orindirectly to the in-vehicle information systems 18 of the subscribers'vehicles 12.

Further, the weather-determining system 10 may be configured to provideone or more weather information feeds to third-party providers ofweather information, such as TELEATLAS, and various national and localweather and news organizations, e.g., radio and television newsorganizations. In at least one such embodiment, an operator of theweather-determining system sells subscription and/or on-demand access toone or more weather information feeds provided by theweather-determining system 10. Such feeds generally will be tailored toa given target audience, which may be determined by geographic region ofinterest, and/or activities of interest.

Moreover, the weather-determining system 10 may determine weatherinformation for all geographic areas from which it receives weather-datareports, or it may confine its weather information determinationprocessing to one or more selected geographic areas of particularinterest. Similarly, it may perform weather information determination ona more detailed, or on a more frequently updated basis for somegeographic areas, as compared to others.

For example, the weather-determining system 10 can be configured torecognize developing severe weather patterns and/or to recognize otheranomalies, such as unusually low reported highway speeds, areasassociated with natural disasters, etc. Further, the weather-determiningsystem 10 may be configured to vary its weather-determining processingfor given geographic areas based on time-of-day, and/or based on thenumber of actively reporting road-going vehicles 12 within any givengeographic area. As one example of this latter processing modification,the weather-determining system 10 may be configured to performrelatively frequent or relatively richly detailed weather informationdetermination for a geographic area having a relatively large number ofreporting vehicles 12. Conversely, the weather-determining system 10would perform relatively infrequent or relatively basic weatherinformation determination for a geographic area having a relativelysmall number of reporting vehicles 12.

In such contexts, the definitions of “large” and “small” vehicle numbersmay be set according to statistical processing considerations. Forexample, the determination that it is or is not raining in a givengeographic area, or the determination of how hard it is raining in thatarea, may be made according to a desired statistical confidence levelonly if a minimum sample set size of reporting vehicles 12 is in thatparticular area. Statistical reliability thus may be determined based onthe sample set size. Additionally, or alternatively, statisticalreliability may be determined based on evaluating the consistency ordisparity in the weather-related data reported from a given area. Ofcourse, in one or more embodiments, the weather-determining system 10can be configured to determine weather information using whateverreported weather-data is available, but to mark or otherwise indicatethe reliability or confidence level associated with such weatherinformation as a function of the number of vehicles 12 involved inreporting the underlying weather-related data.

FIG. 7 illustrates functional processing elements configured for aparticular embodiment of weather-related data processing by theweather-determining system 10. Specifically, a precipitation-relatedweather information processing function 50 includes a preliminarystatistical processing function 52, and an optionalqualification/correlation processing function 54.

In overall terms, the processing function 50 is configured to determineprecipitation-related weather information based on receiving wiper speeddata as all or part of the weather-related data reported by a givennumber of road-going vehicles 12 in a given geographic area—illustratedas wiper data from vehicles V1 through VN. (Note that the same function,or duplicates of this function, process similar data reported for othergeographic areas, and further note that the processing system 40 of theweather-determining system 10 may execute multiple other weather dataprocessing functions.)

In one embodiment, the preliminary statistical processing function 52performs statistical processing of the wiper data, such as by performinga majority vote decision related to the number of vehicles 12 reportingwiper on versus wiper off conditions. Additionally, or alternatively, itmay evaluate how many vehicles 12 report wiper speeds at or above one ormore thresholds, and it may use time-based weighting of the reportedspeeds to generate precipitation-related weather information as anaggregate of the individually reported wiper speed data.

Further, the processing function 50 may include, or selectivelyactivate, optional qualification/correlation processing via theillustrated qualification/correlation processing function 54, oralternatives thereof. As just one example, the processing function 50may qualify or further nuance the wiper speed data by correlating suchdata with related reported data, such as reported road speeds andtemperature. Road speed, for example, serves as a secondary indicator ofrain and its severity. Temperature, on the other hand, does notnecessarily indicate anything about the severity of precipitation, butin combination with precipitation-related data provides a basis for theweather-determining system 10 to infer snow and icing conditions.Notably, ABS-related data provides an alternative or additional dataitem that can be used in conjunction with received ambient temperaturedata and wiper speed data, to more accurately infer freezingprecipitation and/or hazardous road conditions.

As a more general example of weather-data processing, FIG. 8 depicts acomputer program 60, such as may be used to implement the desiredweather information determination functions in the one or moreprocessing systems 40 of the weather-determining system 10. Momentarilyreferring back to FIG. 7, it will be understood that the computerprogram 60 may implement the processing functions of FIG. 7.

In any case, FIG. 8 illustrates a data aggregator 62, whichpre-processes the incoming weather-related data, such that it is brokenout by geographic area of interest, and, optionally, broken out byreport type and/or data types. In turn, a joint data processor 64jointly processes the weather-related data, as aggregated by the dataaggregator 62 for one or more geographic areas of interest. An outputweather information processor 66 may be configured to format all or partof the determined weather information for output as weather informationfeeds, such as to third party providers, return feedback to selectedones of the road-going vehicles 12, etc. As such, one embodiment of theoutput weather information processor 66 functionally interfaces with thecommunication interfaces 42 and/or additional communication networkinterfaces 46 depicted in FIG. 6.

The reliability and detail of such weather information is enhanced byjoint data processing. Joint data processing may involve, for example,processing one or more like items of weather-related data collected fromthe same given geographic area, over the same or similar time periods.Thus, joint processing may entail collectively processing reportedtemperatures collected from different ones of the road-going vehicles12, for the same time frame and geographic area, to obtain an averagetemperature reading for the area. Additionally, or alternatively, suchdata may be jointly processed to identify temperature deviations andgradients across the area, rates of change, etc.

Of course, one or more embodiments of joint weather-related dataprocessing comprise or otherwise include the statistical processing andoptional qualification/correlation processing described earlier herein.Indeed, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the teachingsherein contemplate multiple variations of weather-related dataprocessing and subsequent weather information output by theweather-determining system 10. Similarly, the teachings hereincontemplate multiple variations of in-vehicle information systems 18,and the associated types and amounts of weather-related data reportedfrom the road-going vehicles 12.

As further points of flexibility, those of skill in the art wouldunderstand that information and signals described herein may berepresented using any of a variety of different technologies andtechniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information,signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout theabove description may be represented by voltages, currents,electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields orparticles, or any combination thereof.

Those of skill would further appreciate that the various illustrativelogical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithm steps described inconnection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented aselectronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. Toclearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software,various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and stepshave been described above generally in terms of their functionality.Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or softwaredepends upon the particular application and design constraints imposedon the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the describedfunctionality in varying ways for each particular application, but suchimplementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing adeparture from the scope of the present invention.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits describedin connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implementedor performed with a general purpose processor, a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), aField Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device,discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or anycombination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein.A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in thealternative, the processor may be any conventional processor,controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also beimplemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combinationof a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other suchconfiguration.

The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with theembodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in asoftware module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two.A software module may reside in Random Access Memory (RAM), flashmemory, Read Only Memory (ROM), Electrically Programmable ROM (EPROM),Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM (EEPROM), registers, hard disk, aremovable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known inthe art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor suchthe processor can read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anASIC.

Thus, with all of the above points regarding implementation flexibilityin mind, the foregoing description of the disclosed embodiments isprovided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use thepresent invention. Various modifications to these embodiments will bereadily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principlesdefined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departingfrom the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, the present inventionis not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but is tobe accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novelfeatures disclosed herein. As such, the present invention is not limitedby the foregoing discussion, or by the accompanying drawings. Indeed,the present invention is limited only by the following claims and theirlegal equivalents.

1. A method of determining weather information for one or moregeographic areas, comprising: a) collecting weather-related data inconjunction with geographic position-determining data and vehicleequipment operation data at a plurality of road-going vehicles in theone or more geographic areas; b) receiving, from each of said pluralityof road-going vehicles, a message comprised of said collectedweather-related data in conjunction with geographic position-determiningdata and vehicle equipment operation data, along with corresponding timedata, in a remote weather-determining system; c) processing said datareceived from said plurality of road-going vehicles in said remoteweather-determining system to determine weather information for the oneor more geographic areas, wherein said processing includes statisticalprocessing of the vehicle equipment operation data by performing amajority vote decision related to a number of said plurality ofroad-going vehicles reporting windshield wiper on versus windshieldwiper off conditions and/or evaluating a number of the plurality ofon-road vehicles reporting wiper speeds at or above one or morethresholds, wherein said processing further includes using time-basedweighting of reported windshield wiper speeds to generateprecipitation-related weather information as an aggregate ofindividually reported wiper speed data; wherein the one or moregeographic areas correspond to the position-determining data of saidplurality of road-going vehicles, further wherein said remoteweather-determining system comprises one or more processing systems,local control and monitoring interfaces, as well as communicationinterfaces to at least provide communication links to satellite and/orcellular based communications of said plurality of road-going vehicles,and wherein said one or more processing systems of said remoteweather-determining system utilize a data aggregator to pre-processincoming weather-related data and vehicle equipment operation data suchthat it is broken out by geographic area of interest, and furtherutilize a joint data processor to jointly process the weather-relateddata, as aggregated by the data aggregator, for one or more geographicareas of interest; and d) transmitting the determined weatherinformation from said weather-determining system to selected consumers.2. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the vehicle equipmentoperation data to determine weather information for one or moregeographic areas corresponding to reported positions of the road goingvehicles comprises statistically processing one or more like items ofvehicle equipment operation data collected for a same geographic area bytwo or more of the plurality of road-going vehicles, to therebydetermine statistically reliable weather information for that geographicarea.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving weather-related datafrom a plurality of road-going vehicles comprises, for a given one ofthe road-going vehicles, receiving one or more of temperature-relateddata and precipitation-related data.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinreceiving one or more of temperature-related data andprecipitation-related data comprises receiving ambient temperaturereadings obtained from a vehicle-based information system.
 5. The methodof claim 1, wherein receiving one or more of temperature-related dataand precipitation-related data comprises receiving wiper speedinformation obtained from a vehicle-based information system, andinferring a precipitation condition from the wiper speed information. 6.The method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing theweather-related data that is received comprises statistically processingthe weather-related data to determine statistically reliable weatherinformation for the one or more geographic areas.
 7. The method of claim1, wherein said transmitting step comprises providing the weatherinformation to targeted ones of said plurality of road-going vehicles,and/or providing the weather information to one or more third-partyproviders of weather information for redistribution by such third-partyproviders.
 8. A method according to claim 1, wherein said transmittingstep comprises providing the weather information to those of saidplurality of road-going vehicles for which the weather information isdetermined to be relevant.
 9. The method of claim 8, which comprises thefurther step of determining relevancy of the weather information withrespect to a particular road-going vehicle based on known routeinformation, speed and known position and direction information for theparticular road-going vehicle.
 10. The method of claim 1, which prior tosaid receiving step includes the further step of transmitting periodicmobile initiated position reports (MIPRs) from each of said plurality ofroad-going vehicles, and wherein said MIPRs include one or more items ofweather-related data in addition to position-related data.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, wherein said message received from said road-goingvehicles comprises at least one of ambient temperature data, wiper speeddata and Antilock Braking System (ABS) data from one or more of saidplurality of road-going vehicles in the one or more geographic areas,and wherein said step of processing weather-related data to determineweather information for the one or more geographic areas correspondingto reported positions of said road-going vehicles comprises at least oneof inferring precipitation conditions, inferring freezing precipitationconditions or a risk thereof, and inferring hazardous road conditions,for the one or more geographic areas based on said data.
 12. The methodof claim 1, including the further step of providing said plurality ofroad-going vehicles with a respective in-vehicle information systemhaving a processing system in the form of a Mobile Application Server,wherein said in-vehicle information system is furthermore provided withwireless communication interfaces, and a discrete signal interface forreceiving directly measured weather-related data or vehicle systemsinformation for inferential sensing of weather-related data.
 13. Themethod of claim 1, wherein said step of receiving a message comprisesreceiving messages at predetermined time intervals.
 14. The method ofclaim 1, wherein said remote weather-determining system is a remotenetwork management center having persistent or non-persistentcommunication links with the plurality of road-going vehicles.
 15. Themethod of claim 1, wherein said collecting step includes collectingweather-related data at a first time interval and locally storing saiddata, and wherein said stored data is then batch-reported to said remoteweather-determining system at a second, longer time interval.
 16. Amethod according to claim 1, wherein said joint data processorcollectively processes temperatures aggregated by said data aggregatorfrom different ones of said road-going vehicles to obtain at least oneof an average temperature, temperature deviations and gradients, andrates of change.
 17. A weather-determining system for one or moregeographic areas, comprising: a) means for receiving from each of aplurality of road-going vehicles a message comprised of weather-relateddata in conjunction with geographic position-determining data andvehicle equipment operation data collected from said road-going vehicle,wherein said means for receiving is located remote from said road-goingvehicles and comprises communication interfaces; b) means for processingsaid data received from said plurality of road-going vehicles todetermine weather information for the one or more geographic areas,wherein said means for processing is also located remote from saidroad-going vehicles and comprises one or more processing systems andlocal control and monitoring interfaces, wherein said means forprocessing includes means for statistical processing of the vehicleequipment operation data by performing a majority vote decision relatedto a number of said plurality of road-going vehicles reportingwindshield wiper on versus windshield wiper off conditions and/orevaluating a number of the plurality of on-road vehicles reporting wiperspeeds at or above one or more thresholds, wherein said means forprocessing further includes means for using time-based weighting ofreported windshield wiper speeds to generate precipitation-relatedweather information as an aggregate of individually reported wiper speeddata, and wherein said one or more processing systems comprises a dataaggregator to preprocess the incoming weather-related data and vehicleequipment operation data such that it is broken out by geographic areaof interest, and a joint data processor to jointly process theweather-related data, as aggregated by the data aggregator, for one ormore geographic areas of interest; and c) means for transmitting thedetermined weather information from said weather-determining system toselected consumers, wherein said means for transmitting comprisescommunication interfaces.
 18. The weather-determining system of claim17, wherein said weather-determining system comprises all or part of anetwork management center having persistent or non-persistentcommunication links with the plurality of road-going vehicles.
 19. Theweather-determining system of claim 17, wherein the weather-determiningsystem is configured to jointly process the weather-related datareceived from two or more road-going vehicles for a given geographicarea to determine statistically reliable weather information for thatgiven geographic area.
 20. The weather-determining system of claim 17,wherein the weather-determining system is configured to statisticallyprocess one or more like items of vehicle equipment operation datacollected for a same geographic area by two or more of the plurality ofroad-going vehicles, to thereby determine statistically reliable weatherinformation for that geographic area.
 21. The weather-determining systemof claim 17, wherein the weather-determining system is configured toreceive reports from the plurality of road-going vehicles that includeposition-related data and corresponding weather-related data.
 22. Theweather-determining system of claim 17, wherein the weather-determiningsystem is configured to receive periodic mobile initiated positionreports (MIPRs) from each road-going vehicle, wherein the MIPRs includeone or more items of weather-related data in addition toposition-related data.
 23. The weather-determining system of claim 17,wherein the weather-determining system is configured, for a given one ofthe road-going vehicles, to receive one or more of temperature-relateddata and precipitation-related data.
 24. The weather-determining systemof claim 23, wherein the weather-determining system is configured toreceive ambient temperature readings obtained from a vehicle-basedinformation system as the temperature-related data.
 25. Theweather-determining system of claim 23, wherein the weather-determiningsystem is configured to receive wiper speed information obtained from avehicle-based information system as the precipitation-related data, andis further configured to infer a precipitation condition from the wiperspeed information.
 26. The weather-determining system of claim 17, whichfurther comprises a respective in-vehicle information system having aprocessing system in the form of a Mobile Application Server for each ofsaid road-going vehicles, wherein said in-vehicle information system isfurthermore provided with wireless communication interfaces, and adiscrete signal interface for receiving directly measuredweather-related data or vehicle systems information for inferentialsensing of weather-related data.
 27. The weather-determining system ofclaim 17, wherein said weather-determining system is a remote systemthat is configured to receive Antilock Braking System (ABS) related datafrom one or more of said road-going vehicles in a given geographic area,and to infer hazardous road conditions for the given geographic areabased at least in part on the ABS related data.
 28. Theweather-determining system of claim 17, which further comprises meansfor determining relevancy of the weather information with respect to aparticular road-going vehicle based on of known route information, speedand known position and direction information for the particularroad-going vehicle.
 29. The weather-determining system of claim 26,wherein said in-vehicle information system further includes a vehicledata bus interface for receiving weather-related data or measurementsfrom engine and vehicle management systems of said road-going vehicle.30. The weather-determining system of claim 26, wherein said wirelesscommunication interfaces are adapted to send Mobile Initiated PositionReports to said remote weather-determining system.
 31. Theweather-determining system of claim 26, wherein said in-vehicleinformation system further comprises a position-tracking system that isadapted to determine position-related data in conjunction with theweather-related data.
 32. The weather-determining system of claim 31,wherein the position-tracking system is configured to periodicallydetermine and report vehicle position data, and is further configured tocorrespondingly report weather-related data.
 33. The weather-determiningsystem of claim 17, wherein said weather-related data of said message iscollected at a first time interval and locally stored, and wherein saidstored data is then batch-reported to said means for receiving saidmessage at a second, longer time interval.
 34. The weather-determiningsystem of claim 17, wherein said joint data processor collectivelyprocesses temperatures aggregated by said data aggregator from differentones of said road-going vehicles to obtain at least one of an averagetemperature, temperature deviations and gradients, and rates of change.